


Hot Diggity Dog

by Pollydoodles



Series: The Pizza Dog Chronicles [17]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 14:52:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12061242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: An unexpected heatwave causes trouble.





	Hot Diggity Dog

“Darcy...”

Bucky’s voice was plaintive as he flopped at her feet. Crumpling into an undignified heap in front of where she herself was collapsed on the couch, he peered up at her. Deep blue eyes fixed with a soulful look from behind a mass of dark hair stuck across his forehead. Beads of sweat trickled from his hairline along the curve of his nose and teetered, before succumbing to gravity. 

Darcy suppressed a giggle in the back of her throat at his disgruntled expression.

“Too hot, huh?” She said, sympathetically, and he huffed back at her in response. 

The air in the city was stifling, humid and sticky and far too hot for New Yorkers. They had been hit with a heat wave the likes of which hadn’t been seen in years, and much too early in the season for anyone to be adequately prepared for it. Bucky and Steve were suffering the most, running at a higher temperature than most people did anyway. 

She was feeling it enough herself, but casting an eye over Bucky’s left arm, Darcy considered that lugging around what was essentially a large hunk of metal might be causing him even more discomfort. He sat gracelessly, legs akimbo and head bowed, dark hair plastered against the back of his neck where he’d sweated through it, twisting itself into little curls over his pale skin. 

Darcy felt her heart pinch to watch him. 

“C’mon, Buck,” she said lightly, unfolding herself and bringing a leg either side of his broad shoulders where he sat on the floor in front of her. Darcy let her hands rest on his shoulders and immediately regretted it, feeling the clammy sheen across his skin and her nose wrinkling at the touch of it. 

He rolled his head back to see her properly, a hopeful look on his face. 

“Lemon ice?” She suggested, and had barely finished the words before he’d scrambled to his feet with enthusiasm, discomfort temporarily forgotten as he hauled Darcy up off the couch as well. Managing - just - to stop him from slinging her over his shoulder fireman-style, the dark-haired girl allowed Bucky to tow her in the direction of the kitchen. 

Bucky didn’t have much of a liking for ice creams, at least not the modern ones that came packed with far too much flavour for a Brooklyn boy born and bred in the dying embers of the Great War. He harboured a particular dislike for anything that came with extra bits and pieces; chocolate chunks or crunchy flakes, dollops of cookie dough or slices of fruit.

Darcy had wound up sacrificing a pint of Ben n’ Jerry’s Pfish Food finding out that the sensation and unexpected surprise of something other than ice cream was a step too far for Bucky. 

On the other hand, Lucky had spent the rest of the night licking the walls clean so at least one of the three of them had ended up happy about that particular turn of events.

The super soldier might - under duress - be persuaded to put up with a few rainbow sprinkles on top of plain vanilla; but more often than not Darcy found that there had been a careful and precise surgical extraction performed behind her back. 

Lemon ice, however, was acceptable. More than acceptable in fact, and - having discovered that - it had been difficult to get him to eat anything else in the hot weather. Knowing Bucky and his reluctance to let go of anything he decided he liked, there was a decent chance they’d be having lemon ice for Thanksgiving dinner.

Maybe she could carve it into a turkey shape. 

Darcy squeaked as a wet sensation bumped the back of her legs, twisting awkwardly - one hand still clamped firmly in Bucky’s own as he dragged her toward the kitchen - she found Lucky padding after them, tail wagging enthusiastically from side to side. 

Barnes hadn’t been the only one to discover a taste for lemon ice when the hot weather had descended upon them all. Lucky huffed and panted his way after them, an overheated furry shadow with a lolling pink tongue. He cut a slightly slimmer figure in recent months, after a Steve-led mission to increase his exercise and a determined push from Darcy to reduce the number of bacon slices passed to a slobbering mouth under the breakfast table. 

Lucky now left the room abruptly whenever Steve walked in, but - as the soldier said with a grin - at least that was more exercise. 

“Huh,” Darcy commented, looking over her shoulder as the dog padded behind, yellow ears pricking up with interest as she addressed him. “So you only know proper commands in ASL, but ‘lemon ice’ you pick up just fine.”

Lucky’s tongue slopped from one side of his mouth to the other in what Darcy took as the closest approximation he could muster to a grin. She rolled her eyes. 

“I’m onto you, pooch,” she said, glowering at him. She earned herself a low woof in response. 

Just as she was making the I’m-watching-you signal to a wholly uninterested dog, Darcy walked into a solid wall of muscle. Stepping backward slightly, one hand to her forehead as she squinted up at what turned out to be Bucky’s back, Darcy blinked. 

“What’s up, Buck?” She asked, poking him gently in the back with one index finger. Bucky stepped to one side, twisting to look back at her as he did so, a wounded look plastered all over his face. Darcy’s jaw dropped as her gaze slid from the overheated man in front of her to the freezer door. 

Which was wide open. 

“What the-”

Darcy stepped forward, neatly around the dark-haired man who hovered at her shoulder. Frowning, she pulled at the first drawer, hauling it out unceremoniously and dumping it on the tiled floor. It was easy to do, being as the drawer was completely empty. She huffed in annoyance, and pulled at the next drawer, and then the last one. 

All were emptier than Mother Hubbard’s cupboards on a particularly bad day, save for the last drawer which contained a small scrap of paper, stuck between the ice and the plastic. Darcy picked at it hurriedly, tearing one corner where it had frozen to the drawer. 

The badly written scrawl indicated that this was an I.O.U. 

“Who’s Lou?” Bucky asked interestedly from her right hand side, as he leaned into the cold air that the freezer was kicking out, discomfort temporarily forgotten whilst he could stick his head into something cool. 

“Not Lou, Buck,” Darcy said, crumpling the paper in one hand and rubbing her chin thoughtfully with the other. “It’s eye-oh-you, as in someone owes you something, because they took it. As in, someone took your lemon ices.”

At that, Bucky removed his head from the freezer, an indignant look etched over his face. Behind them, Lucky barked in solidarity. 

“Thing is,” Darcy said slowly. “I bought out the whole freezer section at the local shop, ‘cause I know how much you like them.” She hopped up onto the kitchen counter with a little effort, and leaned back on her hands. Bucky nodded, turning to face her but backing into the open freezer as he did so, letting the cool air chill on his bare arms. Lucky sat on his feet, gazing up at the man adoringly. 

“That’s a lot of lemon ices,” Darcy said, thinking out loud. “I mean, three drawers-full. No one can eat that many…” She paused, and glanced at Bucky. “Well, you can, but there’s only one other person in this building with the kind of appetite you have and that’s-”

She gasped indignantly. 

\----------

“Freeze, Rogers!” Darcy yelled as she burst through the door to his apartment, Bucky following hopefully behind her and Lucky bringing up the rear, tail wagging enthusiastically from side to side. 

“And don’t consider that a pun. Because the crime is not funny, and the punishment will be both severe, and ruthless.”

The living room remained resolutely silent. 

Darcy paused, and looked around. They’d already checked four other places in the tower, and there were no red alerts out for Avengers, so Steve had to be in the apartment. She narrowed her eyes. 

“If I were a conniving, low-life, lemon ice stealing Captain out of time, where would I be?” She mused, padding forwards barefoot over Steve’s carpet. She noted his boots, discarded by the couch. Definitely home, then. 

She glanced to the kitchen, a pile of dirty dishes threatening to topple in the sink, and the plug pulled from the espresso machine because left in the damn thing made an incessant beeping noise that drove Steve ‘round the bend but not quite far enough around said bend for him to man up and admit to Tony that he needed help. 

Sweatshirt - thrown over the back of the couch. 

Shield - resting against the coffee table. 

Laptop - lid open, screen dark. 

Wait.

Darcy edged forward, and put her hand to the laptop. The keyboard hummed under her touch, warm against her fingers. She touched the keypad and it sprang into life - an open web page indicating that it had been used but recently. 

She looked up triumphantly, only to hear a faint “hey, Steve,” from Bucky as she did so. 

“Bucky?” Darcy called, tripping her way over Steve’s discarded clothing - the housewives of America would have a blue fit if they could see the way the man lived - to the sound of his voice. Finding herself at Steve’s bathroom door, she pushed her way in. 

“Oh Darce, no-” 

“What the hell?” She said, amazed at the sight in front of her. 

Steve, stripped to his boxers and sat in the bath, filled to the brim with - mercifully wrapped - lemon ices. The Captain put a hand over his eyes and groaned. Lucky licked at his exposed knee. Bucky sat at the edge of the tub and carefully unwrapped an ice, apparently unconcerned about where he’d plucked it from. 

“Look it’s just.. It’s just really unbearably hot, okay?”


End file.
